To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not rich;
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages
with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently,
await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common ---
this is my symphony.

I invite you to enter for a moment
into Sacred Time and Space,
into a way of seeing that is broad and spacious.
See this Day, from the time you arose this morning
until you sleep this evening, as one Ceremony,
divided into small and familiar rituals,
your Heart as the Altar.
You, part of the Cycles of Light and Darkness.

Now begin to see your Life,
from the moment of your Conception
until the time of your Death
 as one long, continuous Ceremony,
filled with many rituals,
 some familiar, some unknown and challenging.
Your Home and all Your Relations, the Altar.
You, part of many Seasons and Cycles.

Now see this Ceremony of your Life
as part of a much larger Ceremony that extends
Seven Generations into the Past and Seven into the Future,
made up of many Births and Deaths.
This beautiful spinning Earth the Altar.
You, part of the great Ebb and Flow.

  Now, if You will, imagine this larger Ceremony
to be but one part of a Ceremony so grand,
 so magnificent as to be hardly comprehensible,
a great, vast Ceremonial Circle, rich and vibrant
with millions upon millions of swirling
Circles of Dancing Light,
and You, one of those Dancing Circles,
  a Dancer on the Altar that is the Universe,
 where Time is Eternal.

May You Dance In Beauty.

from circle wisdom - by sedonia cahill

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know
that everything in this life has a purpose.

Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast -- you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor.

Trust that still, small voice that says, “This might work and I’ll try it.”

You have the power in the present moment to change limiting beliefs and consciously plant the seeds for the future of your choosing. As you change your mind, you change your experience.

It would be good to find some quiet inlet where the waters were still enough for reflection, where one might sense the joy of the moment, rather than plan breathlessly for a dozen mingled treats in the future.

When we believe there is “no time,” that is what we experience. As all of us know, time is a marvelously malleable commodity. A day can go by in a flash or stretch out endlessly. We like to pretend that the tempo of our time is not our own; however, to a large extent it can be.

Flowers, sesame-seed, bowls of fresh water, a tuft of kusha grass,
all this altar paraphernalia is not needed
by someone who takes the teacher's words in and honestly lives them.
Full of longing in meditation, one sinks into a joy that is free of any impulse to act,
 and will never enter a human birth again.

This life, you must know  as the tiny splash of a raindrop.
A thing of beauty that disappears as it comes into being.
Therefore, set your goal. Make use of every day and every night.

Dance as though no one is watching you,
Love as though you have never been hurt before,
 Sing as though no one can hear you,
Live as though heaven is on earth.

People say that what we’re all seeking in life is a meaningful life. I don’t think
that’s what we’re seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience
of being alive, so that our life experience on the purely physical plane will have
resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually
feel the rapture of being alive.

Within each of us, there is a silence, a silence as vast as the universe.
We are afraid of it. And we long for it. And when we experience that silence,
we remember who we are.

In our culture, time can seem like an enemy:
it chews up and spits us out with appalling ease.
But the monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift
from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather
than allowing us to be used up by it.
According to a friend educated by the Benedictines,
“You never really finish anything in life, and while that’s
humbling and frustrating...it’s alright.”